This is a story about the rise and fall of a compter
peripheral and the company behind it. The company was Databar, and
the product was called OSCAR, which was short for Optical SCAnning
Reader.
In 1983, it wasn't easy to get inexpensive software for your
home computer. Floppy disks were expensive....
Robert Jaeger is best known in the Atari community as the
programmer of the popular game Montezuma's Revenge, which was
published by Parker Brothers in 1984. He also programmed Chomper,
published by MMG Micro Software; and Pinhead, published by Robert's
own company, Utopia...
Tay Vaughan used Atari computers in his school for maritime
skills and as a marine surveyor. He was featured in that capacity
in a 1983 Atari catalog "Atari Home Computers — The Next
Generation." Next, he was hired by Atari and was an editor of The
Atari Connection...
Linda Watson-Call is better known to Atari users as Linda
Schreiber, which was her name at that time. Linda was the founder
of T.H.E.S.I.S. Software, an educational software publisher for the
Atari 8-bit and Apple II computers. The company was best known for
her game,...
Richard Taylor was an employee of Digital Devices Corporation.
DDC built a number of adapters for the Atari 8-bit computers — it's
most well-known product was probably APE-FACE, an inexpensive ($90)
device that connected the Atari's SIO port to standard parallel
printers....